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The cluster of special federal tax benefits and subsidies for homeowners has long seemed politically untouchable. Those include deductions for mortgage interest, local property taxes and capital gains exclusions on up to $500,000 in sale profits.

Is the Obama administration serious about beginning to limit at least some of these subsidies? The administration isn't commenting on anything beyond what was proposed in its first budget, submitted last week, but housing and banking trade groups are worried that the proposal to cut back on the ability of upper-income families to write off mortgage interest and other expenses is just the opening move in a longer-range effort to reform the federal tax code.

They also argue that because tax subsidies are now embedded in home prices in most segments of the market -- not just the upper end -- removing them even partially would cause housing values to drop across the spectrum.

What should homeowners make of all this? Is there a real possibility that Congress will take away tax breaks that millions of people have come to consider an essential part of the home-buying equation? Here's a quick overview of the issue:

-- What did the Obama budget propose specifically on mortgage interest and property tax deductions? Starting in 2011, homeowning households with adjusted gross incomes of $250,000 and above could take write-offs only at a 28 percent marginal tax bracket rate. To illustrate, say you're in the 35 percent bracket and have $20,000 of mortgage interest, property tax and charitable deductions, all of which are targeted in the Obama proposal. This year you would be able to write off 35 percent of the $20,000 -- $7,000. If you were capped at a 28 percent rate, you could write off only $5,600. Your tax bill would go up by $1,400.

-- Why cut these deductions? Very simply, to raise tax revenue so the government can spend the money elsewhere, such as for health care. Mortgage interest and property tax write-offs cost the Treasury massive amounts annually. In a report in October, the bipartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that in 2009, the mortgage interest deduction alone would cost the government $89.4 billion in forgone taxes. From 2008 to 2012, according to the committee, the interest write-off in its current form will cost the Treasury $443.6 billion. Property tax deductions will cost an additional $112 billion over the same period.

-- What impact might these -- and possibly further-reaching future changes -- have on the housing market? Home building, real estate brokerage and banking industry leaders passionately oppose the deduction cutbacks because, they say, they could lower property values and are ill-timed in terms of the vulnerable state of the market.

John Courson, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said that even two years in advance of the actual starting date of the Obama plan, buyers will start "pricing in" the lower tax benefits -- discounting what they are willing to pay for a house given lower future deductions.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said the devaluation ripple effect would extend to the lower- and middle-income segments.